“Where are these people from?” Lucinda Quinboro asks. Lucinda is also a member of the old guard. She and Penny Rosen both got married at the Field and Oar Club during the Kennedy administration. “It says here… Perth, Australia?”

“That’s a mailing address,” Busy says. “They’ve recently spent time in Aspen and the Caribbean, but they’ve made Nantucket their home.”

“My company insures their house,” Rip says. “They told me Nantucket would be their primary residence. Bull said he was planning on having the house winterized, though to my knowledge, he’s made no move to do so.”

“There’s no way Leslee Richardson will be able to tolerate Nantucket in January,” Sharon says. “Or, worse, March.”

“These are the people who throw the parties?” Talbot says.

“Yes,” Busy says. “They’re very social and extremely philanthropic and I think they’ll make a wonderful addition to the club. Shall we take it to a vote?”

Voting on non-legacy members has its own protocol. Busy must go around the table and get a yea or nay from each committee member, and the applicants must have a two-thirds majority, or six votes, to be accepted. Busy goes first: “Yea.” Then, thankfully, she turns to her right, which means Sharon, to Busy’s left, will go last. By then, Sharon is fairly certain her vote won’t matter.

Lucinda offers an uninterested yea and Penny, who always votes as Lucinda votes, is also a yea. Helen Dunsmore is a yea; she’s the least discerning (or, as she claims, the most inclusive) among them; she would let in someone who moved here yesterday. Talbot is a nay but Sharon could have predicted this; Talbot hasn’t approved a non-legacy member in twenty-seven years. Rip is a nay—he always complains there aren’t enough year-round families at the club and apparently the Richardsons’ failure to winterize has rubbed him the wrong way. Larry Winters is a yea because he has a long-standing beef with Talbot.

There are five yeas and two nays when it comes around to Phoebe, and Sharon thinks, This is over, the Richardsons are in. But Phoebe drops her head into her hands and moans.

Busy says, “You can hardly be deliberating, dear. You wrote one of the Richardsons’ seconding letters.”

“I know,” Phoebe says. “But…”

“Didn’t Leslee tell me she donated to Tiffin Academy on your son’s behalf?” Busy asks.

“That’s not supposed to matter,” Rip says.

“Membership at this club can’t be bought,” Talbot says. “Any idea how many bribes I’ve been offered over the years? And I’m proud to say I refused them all.”

“You’re right,” Phoebe says. “Leslee didn’t offer money to me personally; she donated it to my son’s first-choice boarding school, but I believe that was as a favor to me.” Phoebe spins the diamond stud in her ear. “I should abstain.”

“Don’t be absurd,” Busy says. “Give us an answer.”

“That is my answer,” Phoebe says. “I’m abstaining from the vote.”

“So the Richardsons have five yeas and two nays,” Talbot says. “Sharon, it seems their fate lies with you.”

Never in a million years did Sharon imagine she’d be the deciding vote. The good thing is, she doesn’t even have to think about it. “Nay,” she says.

“Sharon!” Busy cries. “You went to all their parties!”

Exactly, Sharon thinks.

“Wait!” Phoebe says. “Is it too late to change my vote?”

The technical answer is yes. Everyone at the table knows there is no changing your vote based on how other people have voted. But Busy says, with undisguised glee in her voice, “Because you abstained, I’ll allow it. What’s your vote?”

“Nay,” Phoebe says. She lifts her plastic cup of Sancerre, and she and Sharon toast their good sense.

As Busy is huffing and puffing about how she just doesn’t understand people sometimes, Phoebe leans toward Sharon. “Would you like to be our fourth in pickleball?” she asks.

“I’d be honored,” Sharon says.

34. Dumped

“We’ll have a big party at the Oystercatcher right after Labor Day,” Andrea says. “But I think we should do something more intimate too. A dinner with just us and the Wheelers and the Drakes. What do you think about that?”

Kacy is at the kitchen island, staring at a text from Isla that reads I’m booking a flight to Nantucket. I have to see you.

“Kacy?” Andrea says.

Kacy looks up. Her mother is waiting for… some kind of answer? Kacy didn’t hear the question. This whole thing with Rondo is real; Rondo is in love with Tami Dunne, he’s leaving Isla. And Isla is flying out to see Kacy. Kacy has been dreaming of Isla realizing that she loves Kacy in a way she will never love Dave Rondo and leaving him despite the inevitable outcry from her family.

But this is a little different.

“Sounds good,” Kacy says to her mother, hoping this is an appropriate answer.

“I’ll let your father pick the place,” Andrea says. “Do you think you’ll bring a plus-one? Maybe Coco?”

“Um… yeah,” Kacy says. Since the horrible scene at the day-drinking party, things between Kacy and Coco have cooled. Kacy texted her a few days after the party: Hey, again, I’m sorry. I hope you don’t hate me. Coco had responded right away: I don’t hate you. So that, at least, was good, but there has been nothing else—no invitations to hang out on the Richardsons’ beach, no more nights out. “What is this for again?”

Andrea swats at Kacy’s arm with a dish towel. “Your father’s retirement dinner. Us, the Wheelers, the Drakes. We’ll do it next Thursday, a week from today.”

“Okay, sorry.” This is the perfect opportunity to make things right with Coco. “I’ll ask her.”

She types: Hey there—Mom wants to know if you can join us for my dad’s retirement dinner, a week from tonight.

Coco responds: Can I let you know? It’s crazy around here right now.

That’s a no, Kacy thinks, and she clicks out of her texts. Her mother is portioning skinless chicken breasts for her father’s sad lunch salads but Kacy feels Andrea watching her. She has to get out of the house.

“I’m going to the beach,” she says.

The south shore is foggy, which turns Kacy’s introspective beach walk into a whole mood. She meanders along the water’s edge as the waves crash, then froth around her feet. Seagulls cry out; sandpipers scurry along in a V formation. There’s a guy surf-casting and when Kacy passes, he gives her an appraising look. If this were a rom-com he might say, Why the long face?

Kacy keeps going. What if she brought Isla as her plus-one to her father’s dinner? That has long been the fantasy, that Isla would show up and declare her love and Kacy could introduce her to her parents, to Eric and Avalon. This is my girlfriend, Dr. Isla Quintanilla. They would be impressed with Isla—a brilliant neonatologist, so well educated, from an important Mexico City family.

Why has Kacy been keeping you from us? Andrea would ask.

Isla was engaged, Kacy would answer. But her fiancé has fallen in love with someone else and taken down his wedding Pinterest page, so… here she is!

It’s wrong. Isla should have left Rondo, not the other way around. Isla wants to come to Nantucket now because she’s been dumped. Kacy is her backup, her plan B, her second choice.

Kacy is getting what she wants, but not for the right reason. And the reason matters.

She pulls out her phone and texts Isla: Don’t come.

Immediately, Kacy’s phone rings. She declines the call.

When Eddie enters his office on Main Street, his sister, Barbie, gives him a wide-eyed-closed-mouth look. Something is up.